Hunger

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “You’ll be careful, won’t you?” she whispered to him.

  “I will,” he said, something in him tightening. He wasn’t used to having someone give a shit about him. There was something infinitely good about it. It gave him a strange sort of strength. He felt as though with her in his corner he would be able to conquer anything.

  It was such a peculiar sensation, nothing at all he was used to. He was used to finding strength only in himself. He didn’t need anyone’s support or concern—or so he had always thought. But there was something compelling about her tenderness and strength. It made it difficult to leave her. He wanted to bask in her affections and support. He was, Halo realized, starved for it.

  The understanding unnerved him. He pulled his hand free and turned his back on her. He forced himself to pull away. Reminded himself he didn’t need anyone but himself—and that to think otherwise was to invite weakness into his life. She would make him vulnerable if he wasn’t careful. He enjoyed the freedom of not being burdened with worry for the well-being of others. He enjoyed the ease of no one being able to use anyone he cared about against him by simply not caring about anyone, save himself. It was better that way, he insisted to himself. He needed to keep free of encumbrances. He couldn’t be effective otherwise.

  Or so he had always believed.

  Halo left her room without a word about where he was going next. He didn’t have to explain himself to her. He answered to no one—save maybe his queen and even she held little influence over his bold and reckless ways.

  He exited the room and Danton was out in the hall waiting for him.

  “Do you have a plan?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Hunt the fuckers down.”

  “Who? Roth?”

  “And Jonah. But I’m most looking forward to Michael,” he growled.

  “A human? How is that vampire business?”

  “It’s not vampire business, it’s my business,” Halo snapped.

  “You had better think twice about that. There are laws against interfering with humans and the human world. Isn’t his involvement a problem for human law enforcement?”

  “No,” Halo bit out. “Because what he has done involves vampires. How can human law be brought in on Felice’s kidnapping without exposing Roth and our kind? Michael’s dirty. He’s up-to-his-eyeballs dirty in this. And you can bet he knows exactly who he’s dealing with. You can bet he knows all about vampires and sycophants. How could he not? So isn’t it up to us to eliminate the threat he poses? Any human who knows about us is a danger to us. Those who consort with sycophants are even more so.”

  “Don’t you think this is something for the committee to decide?” Danton asked.

  “You only say that because you are on the committee. And if I went to the committee every time I wanted to hunt, I would never get anything done. You’ve always trusted me and my judgment when it comes to a target before. What’s different this time?”

  “This time you are emotionally involved in your target,” Danton observed with a quiet voice.

  “The fuck I am!” Halo burst out. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! He’s a mark, just like any other mark. That’s all.”

  “That’s not ‘all,’ ” Danton said firmly. “You are invested in this. In what happens to Felice. Because you care about her. You care a great deal about her.”

  He growled under his breath in warning. Danton was unfazed.

  “Look, she’s a great kid and all, but she’s a kid. A human. I’m ten times her age or something like that. And she’s human. According to all you frickin’ snobs I shouldn’t have touched her in the first place except to feed from her.”

  “That’s never stopped you from dallying with humans before. In fact, you are with a different human woman almost every night. It might be a step in a positive direction to see you stick with a single one for a change. And you wouldn’t have to hide what you are from her. She already knows.”

  “Don’t be ringing any wedding bells for me,” Halo snapped. “You’ve got this all wrong.”

  “Do I? Maybe you’re the one who has it all wrong,” Danton mused.

  “Shut the fuck up. You’re really starting to annoy me, Danton. You’re attaching way more emotion to this than I’m feeling. The most I feel is protective of her. She’s been used and abused…all to get to me. I owe her for that. I’m responsible for what happens to her next. I gotta protect her and the only way I’m going to do that is by putting an end to her ex and Roth and anyone else who might try and use her to…to…”

  “To hurt you?”

  “Yes, damn it! If anyone else were to think like that they’d think the fastest way to get to me would be through her and I can’t have that. I could never have that.”

  Danton grew silent with a frown and Halo took that as a cue to leave him with his thoughts. He turned his back on Danton and began to walk away.

  “You can try to walk away from this, but it won’t work. Sooner or later you’ll have to admit you have more feelings involved in this.”

  “Yeah well, let’s hope you’re wrong about that. For her sake,” he growled.

  “You keep saying this is for her safety and benefit, but how can you be so sure this is what’s best for her? Maybe the benefits of being with you are worth the danger.”

  Halo walked up to the elevators and pushed the button, wishing Danton would shut up and stop following him.

  “I doubt it,” he said bitterly. “I’m not worth it.”

  That changed Danton’s expression to one of surprise.

  “Halo, do you really think so little of yourself? Do you really think you have so little to offer her?”

  Halo jabbed the button to the elevator a few more times, his impatience and discomfort showing.

  “Yeah,” he said. “She’s better off without me…by far. Just look at her life so far. She’s been kidnapped, bitten and fed from, and shot to the point where she needed surgery. All since she met me. I’m like a curse—for her or any woman who hangs out around me too long. It’s best she shuffles off and moves away from me.”

  “Even though that isn’t what you truly want in your heart?”

  “What the fuck do you know about what I truly want or my heart? What, are you a psychic now? An empath? You suddenly have clear insight into me?”

  “No. You’re just far more transparent than you think.”

  “And you’re just imagining things that aren’t there.” Halo pushed the button one more time. The elevator finally arrived and Halo could have exhaled with relief but he resisted showing anything that might be interpreted as emotional response. He stepped into the elevator and glared at Danton to keep him from following him into the car. “Stay with her. Keep her safe for me.”

  “Why do you care so much for her safety?” Danton asked, reaching out a hand to hold the door open. “Did you ever wonder about that?”

  “I told you, I feel responsible. That’s all.”

  “That’s all? I highly doubt that. I think you need to take a long look at your soul, Halo. I know you don’t do it very often, but you need to truly examine your feelings. I think you’d be surprised at what’s there.”

  “Danton, go back and watch her,” Halo said dangerously. He reached for Danton’s wrist and physically peeled him away from the elevator door, pushing him clear so the door closed. Then he selected the lobby.

  Thoughts churned in his head as the car carried him to the ground floor. Damn Danton anyway. The arrogant fucker thought he knew so much about everything. He needed to keep out of Halo’s business. He needed to keep his personal microscope to himself. Let him examine everyone else but not him.

  Halo stopped by the guard desk and popped in the DVD just briefly enough to freeze a picture of the culprit and print it out. He took a piece of tape and taped it to the surface of the desk.

  “There’s your bomber, fellows,” he told them. “Keep an eye out.”

  “What do we say to the human authorities we’ve g
ot swarming about?” one guard asked, keeping his voice very low so none of the humans standing in the lobby heard him. “As it is they are irritated we don’t have tape of the front entrance. They are looking at us suspiciously for that.”

  “Let them look. If they see this picture just tell them he’s wanted for theft of some office supplies or something equally mundane. Just whatever you choose, make sure you all stick to the same story.”

  “Theft of office supplies sounds good to me,” one guard said with a grin.

  “Hey, this isn’t fucking funny,” Halo snapped, grabbing the guard by his shirt front and getting in his face. “You guys really dropped the ball. Don’t do it again.”

  Halo released the guard who had gone pale. He nervously looked over to the humans in the lobby to see if any of them had noticed the interaction. None had. Halo smoothed a hand down the guard’s chest and rearranged his tie so it was sitting straight once more. He leveled a cool smile at the guard.

  “So tell me, who is this guy to you?” He tapped a finger on the countertop picture. “If you let him in, you have to know who he is.”

  “It’s our job to know who everyone is,” another guard said. This guard was not intimidated by Halo in the least, his demeanor easy but his body tense and aware. Halo respected that.

  “Who is he? Where does he work? Is he here?”

  The guard went to the computer on the desk and typed in a password. He searched through information for a moment then said, “His entry card was last scanned yesterday when he entered the elevator at three thirty-six to come back down to the lobby. He was only here for ten minutes,” the guard said.

  “You got a bio of the guy in that thing?” he asked, nodding toward the computer.

  “Only the basics. Where he lives in the building, what his job here is, what floor he works on.”

  “Let me see.”

  Halo looked at the screen and remembered every detail available on Jonah. Then he nodded his thanks to the guard.

  “He’s dangerous. Keep an eye out,” he warned them.

  Halo walked away from the guards and headed out of the building.

  Chapter 18

  Halo was a hunter, so he knew how to find his prey, especially when they were running from him. Jonah was running. All the signs said he was. He had hastily packed and moved. He had said goodbye to all of his friends, broken up with his lover, and quit his job. Admittedly the quitting-his-job part was a given after trying to blow the place to kingdom come, but still…

  Halo tracked him all the way to a posh little townhouse, appreciating the efforts he had taken to conceal his route from all but the most experienced and determined of hunters.

  Halo was that hunter.

  Now Halo sat watching the house from a dark corner across the street. It was cold, the coldness seeping into his very bones, but he didn’t care. He would stand there however long it took to see what he wanted to see.

  Roth. He wanted Roth. And he knew, just knew, he was in that townhouse. It was just Roth’s style. Expensive and old. Like Roth himself. He had been hunting Roth enough to know that he liked to live the good life. He knew enough to know that before he had defected to sycophanthropy he had moved a tremendous amount of money out of his bank accounts, likely to an untouchable offshore account somewhere. Halo had been trying to figure out a way to attack his resources, perhaps flushing him out that way, but he had been captured before he could really pursue the possibility. Now that he was back on Roth’s trail he would revisit the strategy—that is, if he wasn’t in this house.

  And even if he wasn’t in the house, Jonah was. And wherever Jonah was, Roth would eventually be. They would be together in person at some point. True, most details could be handled over the phone, but Halo was betting Roth was more hands-on than that. He liked getting his hands dirty. Even when he had been on the good side of the vampire world he had liked to go about doing things himself and, in small doses, taking on more menial tasks in order to ingratiate himself with those who worked beneath him, making them think he was a man of the people. That he wasn’t so high up that he would forget the little guy.

  It was a tactic that had led Simone and Halo and others to think he might one day try to take the crown away from Simone. True, she was an elected queen and every ten years her term came up, but she had held the office for six consecutive terms, the people quite satisfied with how she was running their lives.

  Halo was forced to wonder what Roth’s endgame was here. Did he imagine himself ruling the vampire world? No. That could never happen now that he was a sycophant. Surely he knew that.

  Then…did he want to rule the sycophant underworld? It already had a leader, and Draz would not just sit back and let Roth steal it from him.

  What then? What was it? Halo needed to understand that if he was going to understand his prey. And he would never catch Roth if he didn’t fully understand his motives. He tried to put himself in Roth’s shoes. He built the picture around himself.

  “I’m handsome and proud of that handsomeness. I like to use it to get and then control women. I am rich and powerful. I love money and the things it can buy. When I am with a woman I hold little value over her.”

  He stopped. He realized then that the picture he was building was close to Roth but more accurately belonged to Michael. It made him wonder if he would find Michael in this building as well. At that moment he didn’t know who he wanted more—Roth or Michael. Roth had injured him, had demeaned and victimized him, had made him helpless. But Halo could fight for himself. He could defend himself. He could break free and make it an equal playing field. Felice had been innocent in all of this and Michael had seen to it that she was stripped and brutalized. She would never have escaped without him. She would still be there now, food for whatever sycophant wanted her, if they had not escaped together.

  That was untenable. It made Halo seethe with rage to think of it. He had used social media to find Michael, to see a picture of the bastard’s face. He had burned it into his memory.

  If all three were indeed in that townhouse, Halo had to be cautious. He couldn’t just storm in and take them all on himself. There were bound to be others—other guards and sycophants who had flocked to Roth’s banner. It would do him no good to go in there raging with nothing but his strength and outrage to defend himself. He had to be clever about this.

  So he watched and waited. He tracked all the activity going in and out of the townhouse. He counted. He was still watching when the townhouse door opened and a man, bundled up against the cold, stepped outside. He stood on the stoop putting his gloves on. Halo knew immediately he was human. Vampires could always tell the difference between vampires, humans, and sycophants just by looking. Their energy auras were easy to read.

  That and the fact that e-vamps didn’t need to bundle up against the cold. They could use their inner energy to keep warm in any temperature. They wore coats so as not to stand out from others and to conserve that energy, but they didn’t bundle up like this guy. They needed to be able to move fluidly. To take on any attackers that might come at them. Sycophants and e-vamps both wanted to be battle ready in case they ran into one another.

  Halo had to make a decision. Follow this human or wait and see if Roth was in the townhouse. The temptation was just too great. If this human was Michael, he wanted to get his hands on him. There would be time to go back and get Roth…and Jonah. Time for darkness to fall. Halo still hadn’t decided if he was going to call in reinforcements or if he was going to work his way through the house on his own. It would be taking a big risk to take on everyone by himself, but it wouldn’t be the first time he had fought unknown odds and come out the victor. He was leaning in the direction of calling in a team. He couldn’t afford to screw this up.

  What he needed was information. And he knew exactly where he could get some.

  He stalked the human prey, following him through the city streets, waiting for his opportunity. He watched the human window-shop, watched him eat pizza.<
br />
  Halo had entered the restaurant and bought a soda so he looked like just another customer. He did it so he could sit in a chair that faced the human and he could get a good look at his face as he ate.

  It was Michael. His luck seemed to have turned for the better, Halo thought. Which was good because it had really sucked lately. Unless he counted his time with Felice. As unlucky as their meeting had been, he was happy he had met her, happy she was in his life. His unease came when he thought of all she had suffered because of him. And because of Michael.

  Oh man, was he going to kill this guy. But not too quickly. No, Michael’s death would serve more than one purpose.

  Halo followed him into the bathroom, washing his hands while the other man stood at the urinal. He debated his next move. He needed to get Michael somewhere less public. He wanted to take his time with Michael. Wanted him to suffer slowly because of Felice. He deserved it. He was owed it. And he deserved to know it was Felice reaching out for justice against him. She was too gentle a soul to do so on her own, but he knew that somewhere inside of her she was happy to use Halo as a means for that justice.

  Justice would not happen, however, if he couldn’t get this guy alone. But Halo was nothing if not patient. He would wait and bide his time, even though it meant Roth might get away temporarily. He had faith in his own abilities. He would track Roth to hell if necessary.

  After about another half hour tracking Michael, his opportunity presented itself. Michael stepped inside the vestibule of another building, taking the opportunity to warm his hands and his body over the heat grate in the floor.

  Halo had so far concealed his identity from Michael, wearing a hoodie and a pair of dark sunglasses, but now it was time to play. Time for Michael to learn about whom he had crossed.

  He entered the vestibule behind Michael and double-checked the surroundings for potential witnesses. Then he stood face-to-face with Michael and with a wicked grin on his lips he said, “Hello, Michael.”